KX: A Demon By Any Other Name
by yuyuyashasrain
Summary: Three years ago, Kim led a normal life. After a tragic accident, she found herself blackmailed by a demigod. She unlocked dangerous powers and got tangled in a web of mistaken identities. Now one question haunts and hurts: Who can she trust? OCXOCXOC
1. Animal

Anyone with a weak constitution should leave immediately.

This story is not a very happy one, nor is it a very trite one.

This story is only for the hard of heart, for those who are capable of bearing witness to crimes of sick perversion and walking away unscathed.

This story is not one to be taken lightly at all.

This story is one of pain, of suffering, of betrayal, of me.

My name is KX and I'm 17 years old.

This is my story...

* * *

Where to begin?

My childhood was simple enough. I had a sister, a cat, and two parents. I had friends, though they weren't what one might call "normal." Then again, neither was I.

My sister Tori was kind of my role model. She talked tough and always backed it up. She had every possible piercing and knew everything there was to know about life and then some. I didn't like her pot-head friends, but what we did was fun. We had contests: Who could sustain the most salted ice burns, who could drink the most of their own blood, who could stand the most hot wax... We had fun. She ran away a lot, mainly from my dad, so I appreciated the time I had with her. The only thing I didn't like was how destructive she was, especially to herself. I never saw the point in her drugs, sex, and alcohol, but I never confronted her about it.

It's not like I've never had a drink. I was always in the living room with my mom drinking Smirnoffs as a kid. It wasn't my favorite thing to do, but Mom was cool when Dad wasn't around. She loved being a mom, something I'll never understand. What's even more surprising is that when Tori started bringing home dates, they were allowed to have sex in her room. At least it was under her own roof, she said.

Of course, that was only when my dad wasn't home. Around him, Mom usually stayed in the background, or else she was the strictest parent in the world. I never asked why; I just went with it, like everything else. My dad was a drinker and a smoker. My memories of him always have straight-shot Bacardi in one hand and a menthol Marlboro in the other. He worked at a steel plant and collected metal out of people's dumpsters on his way home every day to take to the scrap yard. That's where we got our bikes: other people's dumpsters.

Looking back on it now, I guess I never really knew what we had. I was grateful for everything, of course, since we were never well-off, but I didn't know life could've been worse. I knew it wasn't normal for us to sleep in the living room during the summer, which we did for lack of an A/C. Our rooms were too hot for us; it would've been child neglect. But I always thought I'd have them there.

Even now, family isn't the most important thing to me. It never has been; I've never understood why it's such a big deal to stay together. I can see that being important if you fall in love, but you don't have to stay with your family; you just have this connection with them that makes it okay to be apart. I do, anyway.

Now that they're gone, it's true that I miss them, but their absence doesn't hurt as much as people say it does. The only thing that hurts is... it's all my fault...

I'll never forget the day they were taken. Ironically, it happened on my twelfth birthday. At the party.

My dad used the tax return money to do something nice for us. I overheard him saying he felt guilty because he could never give us anything, so he changed that by taking us ice-skating. I was enamored with winter, so it was a good way to celebrate. I was told to invite people from school. The problem was, I didn't talk to anyone, so I let Tori invite a bunch of her friends.

So we all went skating. I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I was having the time of my life until Dan, one of Tori's friends, told me to follow him; my parents hid my birthday present in the back. He would know, he told me, because he saw them hide it during his shift yesterday.

I had a terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen, but I made the mistake of ignoring it. I neglected to realize, in my excitement, that something bad _always_ followed that feeling.

The jinx wasn't broken. When we got to the employee lounge -- always empty during this, the busiest hour -- Dan locked us in and covered my mouth. Everything stopped -- my breath, my heart, my whole body -- and waited for the Unthinkable.

"This is cyanide," he told me, holding up a small bottle of blue liquid. "It's poison. If you scream, your whole family dies."

No, I didn't like them, but I had instincts to protect them, so I made myself stay quiet. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me and, all things considered, it still is. I didn't know what he was doing back then, I had no idea what hurt me so much... no idea what made me lose control...

The last thing I remember clearly is me on the floor, bleeding and crying, while he hit me to shut me up and continued tearing my body apart.

All of a sudden, I was standing over Dan, enraged, as he cowered in fear before me. Claws that couldn't have been mine reached out and tortured him to death, ripping apart all his pride would not let him live without, trying to drag it out as long as possible. Though I didn't know it then, I was making him pay the ultimate price for the scar he left on my young life. It's all I'll ever condone of that night.

I crashed through the wall, imposing my fury upon anything in sight... and unfortunately, the crowd was directly in my field of vision.

I tried as hard as I could to stop myself, but, only half-conscious, I had no control. I watched helplessly as I fought my way through the crowd, throwing ten people at a time out of my way. I saw them run in terror, watched them all die, as the rest of the world cried, "_Monster!_" The smart ones fled, the slow ones died... and on I went, paying my pandemonium no mind.

A monumentally stupid man in BDU pants drove the Zamboni to the edge of the rink and started shooting at me. I heard terrifying laughter echo through the building and died inside when I realized it was me.

Unable to do all but scream, I saw my claws reach for the man, moving straight through the barrage of bullets flying at me. I seemed to be made of mist until I reached him, when I became solid and grasped his frail human form. I was scaring myself so badly, I wanted to suffer my own wrath rather than be the one responsible.

The fool I now held in my demonic clutches kicked and punched just as hard as he could, but refused to scream. His fate may have desensitized me to some degree, as I watched him being torn limb from limb, as his eyeballs were dug straight out of the sockets and dropped to the ground with a bloodcurdling _splat!_ but I was in no way prepared for my next act of maniacal tyranny.

Even as I screamed for an end to the madness, as I voiced my trauma at the sight of what he suffered for trying to stop me, my fear only showed itself in the form of a deafening roar that shook the entire building and made the lights come crashing down, killing throngs of innocent people and leaving other, less fortunate ones alive and electric.

All too soon, there they were: My parents. I lifted my dad off the ground easily and tore him to pieces, first the skin off his arms, then the shins off his legs, as he struggled wildly against me and bathed the ice below him in thick Teutonic blood. Each gush fell with a sickeningly satisfying splatter against the floor of the frozen torture chamber. I remember being more disgusted as I realized part of me was _enjoying_ this...

I heard my mother scream his name and he managed to choke out, "Run away!" through the blood now pouring out of his mouth: I had cut his jugular vein just enough to make him bleed out slowly. He had to yell, "GO!" before she would listen, but it didn't matter: While I crushed his rock-hard bones easily in one hand, I reached for my mother with the other.

For the first time, I actually found the strength to take control of myself for my mother's sake. The moment the clawed hand went for her, something inside me snapped. It wasn't the monster; it was my normal human self. I was alive and willing to kill for her. I poured all my energy into stopping it, gave everything I had to containing the beast, to locking it away where it would never again see the light of day... but I was too late.

Yes, I'd managed to retract the monster and force it back to whatever den it crawled out of, but just before it went inside, it gave one last swipe of its claws.

Nearly dead from the effort needed to contain the thing, it was all I could do to find it in me to get off the ground. Without the strength to see my father so dismembered, I pushed past him and stumbled over to my mother.

This was the last thing I needed to see. There she was, fully alive and in shock, her unseeing eyes not even focused on the ceiling she was so fixated on, three long, bloody gashes across her throat.

"Oh, my God," I muttered, wishing I could return to this morning when I couldn't see in total darkness. "Mom, no..."

The adrenaline pumping through me must've given me the strength to carry my mom out the back when I heard sirens in the distance. Once again due to the monster, when I ran through the forest out back, I knew the exact location of every rock and root and river, so I didn't fall.

I kept going until I ran out of breath, then laid my mother down in a small clearing. I let my tears fall freely as I touched her face and her hair so lovingly. I couldn't accept this... My mother was dying.

"Kim... your pain... is my pain," she rasped, lifting her hand to touch my face. "So don't... don't cry. Be the strong woman you are. And always remember... that I..."

Before she could finish her sentence, her hand went limp, her eyes closed, and she left. She was gone. She was never coming back.

"Mom, no," I begged, squeezing her hand, as if trying to hold her here. "Mom, just you can't leave us behind! We need you! _Mom!_"

When she didn't answer, I threw her hand back down, stood up, and turned away in one motion. I dried my tears, eyes closed tight against reality, and tugged my hair at the roots. I started panting again, this time out of panic rather than exhaustion, as if, by taking up enough oxygen for both of us, I could fool the world. If nobody knew I killed her, maybe she'd come back... I couldn't just let this... there was no way this was happening...

_This is my fault,_ I told myself. _This is what I get for harboring that parasite, letting it feed off my life force. I get what I deserve._

Slowly, trembling and crying, I turned back to her, knelt down, and grasped her hand again. _Mom, come back,_ I prayed in vain, hugging her arm close to my chest. _Mom, please..._

When she stayed just as dead as she had been, I closed my eyes and bowed my head low, hiding behind my hair as I always did when I cried. I'd taught myself to be silent; I was too afraid of people learning my weaknesses.

I felt my breath stop as my heart broke. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think. I couldn't even move. I could barely recognize my sister's voice as she screamed in horror, "What the _hell _did you do?"

I looked up at Tori, never happier to see her. At least there was _someone _I hadn't killed! But I dared not approach her; I was much too dangerous. I could never make any kind of contact with anyone ever again. I never wanted to see a night like this again.

"Kim, come on, let's get outta here!" Tori hissed, gesturing emphatically 90 degrees west of the sirens. "We have to go!"

"No," I said quietly, still clutching Mom's hand. "No, I'm not leaving."

"Have you lost your mind?" Tori said incredulously. "I can't leave you out here alone with whatever -- did this..." Tori closed her eyes, massaged her temples, and glared authoritatively. "Dammit, Kim, I'm three years your senior, now get your ass in gear!"

"Tori, I can't go," I repeated, looking up at her seriously. "Please, just trust me on this! Have I ever lied to you?"

Tori was silent. Yes, we pulled vicious pranks. Yes, we beat each other up. Yes, we slammed each other's heads through the walls of the trailer. But one thing we never did was lie.

"You can't stay out here alone," she said finally, quietly. "I can't let you."

"Tori..." I sighed, looked at the ground, and glared back up at her. "Tori, you have to go, and you have to do it now. I can't explain, just go."

Tori was silent again, her eyes wide in silent horror as she finally understood.

"You didn't," she murmured, then screamed at me, "No! How could you do this to me? You don't even _know_ how much I hate you right now! I swear to God, if it's the last fucking thing I do, I will KILL YOU!"

"Hey!" a man's voice shouted, and everyone in the audience gasped as the chapter drew to a close.

* * *

Ha! You weren't expecting _that_ plot twist, were you? Well, tell me what you think. ja ne


	2. Monster

"Hey!" a man's voice shouted, and Tori and I looked up from our sibling war, prepared to defend each other on instinct. "What are you girls doing out here?"

"Kim, I'm leaving," Tori said, and I knew I'd fallen from grace in her eyes if she was willing to trust the state over me. We'd been dealing with the Department of Child and Family Services all our lives. "I won't rat you out, but know I'm coming after you. Run while you can."

I said nothing; I knew she was right in this. As she walked away, welcoming an authority figure's false kindness for the first time, I realized I'd be living with this for the rest of my life. I was a monster now, so they had every right. Why shouldn't I join them in their crusade against me?

I took one last look at Tori, knowing I had to hide from the policeman now coming toward me, and allowed my legs to propel me fifteen feet in the air. I landed on a high branch and began leaping from one tree to the next, like an animal, much too quickly for the human to follow, much too supernaturally for him to want to. No longer in control of my own body, I let myself explore the depths of a self-loathing I'd never noticed before.

After the first few minutes, I lost track of how far I was going. I wasn't even aware there were woods this deep so close to the city. It didn't matter now, though. I had no idea where I was headed, or what the future held, but it had to be better than what I was leaving behind.

* * *

"Think she's dead?"

"No way, I could've sworn I heard her breathing on the way here..."

"Yeah, but what about now?"

"Why didn't we ever learn how to properly dispose of a body? You'd think we'd need that out here..."

"Shut up, she's awake!"

I opened my eyes the slightest bit at a time to allow them to adjust to the light, though there wasn't much. By the light available, though, I could see that I was being studied by three teenage girls, all a few years older than me.

"Hey, you okay?" the obvious leader asked. She had long, dark hair tied back in a high ponytail, a white muscle shirt (though it was still early February), and authentic-looking BDU pants.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my head, and groaned. The other girls backed off, but not because they were afraid I'd attack them, just to give me some air.

"Ugh... Have I been drinking?"

"Maybe," the leader said, as a black girl in a grey pullover helped me to my feet. "We don't know; we just found you."

"Where am I?" I asked, taking in my surroundings.

"You're where all the outcasts end up," a girl with violent orange hair replied. "You're with the Freedom Fighters."

"I'm Mercedes," the leader said.

"Lang," the orange-haired girl said.

"Dakota." The black girl gave a small wave. "So what's your name?"

"KX."

The girls exchanged raised eyebrows.

"If you say so," Lang said with a smile. "So, KX, where are you from?"

I looked at the ground evasively, trying to pass it off as hopelessness. "Who cares?"

"Hey, we all had that attitude when we first came here," Lang assured me. "But you're among friends now. Come on. We'll show you around."

And so they did. I became fast friends with Mercedes, Lang, and Dakota as they taught me the history of their little town. They started off as a group of runaways, victims of abuse, and martyrs for their families' welfare. Soon they grew in number and pack mentality enough to raid the nearby rich neighborhood. They never took more than what they needed to survive and only attacked to put opponents at bay while they escaped. Miraculously, I thought, they were never caught.

Predictably, some tried to break unwritten laws. They stole from "packmates," started fights, and used unnecessary force on the rich people. They were exiled by "popular vote."

Everyone else had agreed to these conditions in exchange for protection and companionship. Now it was my turn to be initiated.

The day after I was brought here, Mercedes left me alone with Lang and Dakota while she went to "take care of something." That was in the early afternoon. At dusk, after I'd spent some time getting to know the two chatterboxes and their banter, I was brought to the fire pit where an unnecessarily large pile of wood was aflame. Mercedes was standing there, arms crossed in all seriousness, surrounded by her equally stoic pack. Lang and Dakota went to join the ranks and left me standing alone to face them all.

"When you came to us, you were tired and weak," Mercedes said dramatically, in a loud, clear voice, as if she was addressing everyone. "Now that you are of sounder judgment, I must ask you one simple question: Are you ready to be one of us?"

"I promise to try," I answered, equally dramatic for her benefit, "but I accept exile in advance if I should fail."

Her expression went from neutral scrutiny to aggressive judgment. "You can only fail if you turn on us. Do you foresee a betrayal?"

"I foresee nothing; I only acknowledge my past."

Mercedes stared at me for a long moment, not saying anything, analyzing my relatively relaxed body language and neutral expression, trying to see if I was trustworthy despite a horrific past she knew nothing about.

There was complete silence for almost two minutes before Mercedes finally smiled, touched my arm, and said, "Welcome to our family."

I returned her smile, grateful to have a family again and hoping I wouldn't kill this one.

Over the next few months, I attended every raid Mercedes set in motion. She wasn't exactly the leader -- there really wasn't one -- but we regarded her as such because planning and morale were both fortes of hers.

Soon, though, I found myself interrupting her and pointing out possibilities she'd overlooked, but I'd instinctively prepared for. Nobody trusted me at first, but when my proposals consistently proved true, I very nearly replaced Mercedes as "leader." She still thought of the plans, but now she ran them all by me before telling everyone else. This didn't bother her; on the contrary, she appreciated my help.

By summer's end, I was very well renowned in the pack, so much that I was asked to pass final judgment on new initiates. Mercedes said I had uncanny instincts, and our democracy supported her.

One member before my time, Jake, seemed more fascinated by me than the rest. Starting around mid-March, I saw his icy blue eyes following me from under his sleek black hair almost everywhere I went. Mercedes was quick to notice this and immediately warned me against him. He wasn't a traitor yet, she said, but he looked like trouble.

Even though I trusted her judgment, there was just something about Jake that made his company irresistible. Against her wishes and under the guise of his rehabilitation, I started spending time with him. We talked for hours about his past, my present, and "our future," which he insisted referred to the pack as a whole. Each time we met, I realized all over again how wrong Mercedes must be, but each time we parted ways, I was instilled with a deeper mistrust than ever before.

How was it that he always managed to make me ignore that?

* * *

A few weeks after meeting Jake, I was in the main shed with the rest of the pack going over the plans for the next raid when someone called my name. I turned to see who it was and saw Jake standing in the doorway.

Something very strange happened at that point. One second, I was about to ignore him until I had to tell him to be quiet, and the next I was standing next to him ten feet away from the shed. I blinked furiously and shook my head, trying to explain to myself what happened in the past few seconds. For some reason, I couldn't, and the need was slipping away.

I looked up at Jake, and I might've asked what happened, but I couldn't remember why I should. Instead he distracted me by saying, "Let's go to the lake. I have a surprise for you."

I felt an undeniable need to follow him to the lake, though I knew the planning process was the most important thing in the world right now, and before I knew it there we were, at the boundary line of our territory, with no recollection of how we got there.

Jake distracted me once again by smiling at me and saying, "I know what you are, KX. You're not alone."

I watched him wordlessly as he turned his face to the sun, too out of it to be scared like I should be that he knew what I was or, more importantly, that there were more monsters like me. I still didn't know why I was so out of it, I realized as two black leathery wings emerged from his shoulder blades --

What?

As I watched, his metal wristbands that extended halfway up his forearm hardened into some tougher metal and sharpened, lengthened into long, lethal elbow blades like little lances at his sides; his nails had morphed into claws as well, accompanying their two larger counterparts.

When he turned to smile at me, the whites of his eyes were black and there was only red where the pupils should've been, no irises at all. It was a little disturbing, to tell the truth.

"I'm the same as you," he said, his voice a little deeper, a little rougher than before, his canine teeth no longer as short or as flat as they had been. "It's not something to hide from. We have gifts. Let's share them together." He took my hands in his and his eyes turned black entirely, and in them I saw myself running away with him -- flying, specifically, in his arms, his wings outstretched as he carried us far away from here, where we would raise children just like us and live our lives freely and openly as demons --

_Demons._

The word hit me then and I realized living as one might just kill me. What made me think I could ever control that damn fox? I'd end up killing everything in sight, just like...

I stopped myself before I could think of that hellish night when _she_ escaped and shook my head ferociously, breaking Jake's spell.

_He's been hypnotizing me..._

"Jake, we're not the same!" I said sharply, ripping my hands away from his. "I can't go with you."

"Yes, you can," he said, trying again.

"No! Stop doing that. It doesn't work anymore."

"Because you're strong!" Jake insisted, oddly expressive with his jewel-bright little eyes. "Because you're different! KX, you're better than they! And you and me, we're the same! Why d'you wanna fight that?"

"I'm not gonna be this!" I insisted right back, clenching my fists and falling into a slightly aggressive stance. "I buried that part of me for a reason. I won't try to resurrect it."

"You can't deny who you are, anymore than you can deny your feelings for me!" Jake shouted, more angry, less desperate, subconsciously shifting his stance in reaction to mine.

"_Feelings?_" I repeated, astounded at the extent of his audacity. "Jake, we're packmates, not lovers! And you're seven years older than me!"

"Oh, forget the pack!" he said exasperatedly, throwing his arms in the air. "We don't belong with them! Don't you see? They're weak! You are mine and I am yours and we're meant to be together!"

I gave him a death glare my sister would be proud of and ignored the pang that accompanied that thought. "I assure you, if I were anyone's property, I wouldn't be yours."

This made him give up half the battle. Unfortunately, the other half still raged inside him.

"And if you're not with me, you won't be with anyone!"

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, raised his arms above his head and grasped a flaming sword that appeared out of thin air at his long-winded call. His appearance was suddenly more beastly than ever, his muscles enlarging, his skin covered in tough black scales, his hair and goatee disappearing into the reptilian mutation. Then he shouted, in a voice that would flatter Beelzebub, "Prepare to _die!_"

As he was at the point of bringing it down on me, of tearing me in half and burning me alive at the same time, a mass of something thudded against his chest, knocking them both to the ground. At almost the same instant that his flaming sword went out and he was stalled by the shock, Mercedes looked up from her position straddling his waist and shouted, "Lang, _now!"_

Lang ran at the two instantaneously, and with one swish of the axe in her hands, it was over: Jake's head had barely been disembodied when he turned to dust entirely and blew away in the wind.

"Do they always turn to dust like that?" Lang asked, making me wonder why no one was surprised by this. The fox led me to an instinct of fear, which I guess was brought on by her knowledge that they would try to kill me, her host and only tie to this world. Obviously they knew something about demons...

_Koenma,_ the fox rasped to me, and an image of a handsome, dark-haired teenager with some inscription on his forehead and a pacifier in his mouth flashed through my mind.

So who the hell...?

"Only the fire types," Mercedes answered almost absently as she stood and turned to me, bringing me back from my reverie with an expression of absolute hatred on her face.

"Mercedes --"

"Shut up!" she interrupted me in a clear, commanding voice. "We took you in! We trusted you! We thought you were our friend! How could you put us all at risk, you... you _monster_!"

"No, I -- I didn't --"

"Spare me the excuses! From this day forth, you are the enemy of the Freedom Fighters! _EXILE!!_"

The rest of the pack gave answering cries of approval and began circling me, moving in on me. I panicked, not wanting to die, but not wanting to hurt them either. They mistrusted me, it was true, but I still regarded them as friends, the only ones I'd ever had. All I could do was trust myself not to cause them harm and let my forgotten instincts save me.

As they were about to take me down, a desperate burst of energy was suddenly released from my core in the form of a circular barrier that knocked them all off their feet. A few were thrown, and for that I was sorry, but I knew they would be all right. I took my one and only chance to escape and bounded into the forest. All that followed me was Mercedes' resonating call, quite a familiar threat:

"I swear to God, KX, if it's the last thing I do, I will _kill you!"_

Yeah... take a number.


End file.
